mo winning = mo problems

Steve says:

I just watched the interviews with Sundin and PM on the Leafs TV online clips and I thought they they both were in really good spirits considering everything going on around them.

Sundin said that he wants to stay in Toronto, PM put Steve Simmons in his place about starting firing rumours (that was great cuz Simmons is a tool).

2 great interviews....

but

both guys state that winning makes the problems go away...and I don't agree...I think winning a few more games this season..even squeaking into the playoffs actually creates more problems than it fixes.

If they win, JFJ will get an extension.

If they win, JFJ will not trade away Tucker for someone who can still take a slapshot one timer and hit the net.

If they win, Woznewski and White will continue to police our blue line with as many wholes in their play as the Mexico/ US border.

I hope some big changes happen this week...

Chris:

Ferguson is gone baby gone. At this stage in the game it doesn't matter how much they win. The fans don't believe he's got it, the board doesn't believe he's got it...right now, dumping him overboard would be akin to a mercy killing.

I will say this for him. I don't believe the man ever got a fair shake at doing his job, without unessecary interference.

I also think that it's really easy for us to sit back and armchair manage the whole team, but let's be reasonable, if all of Leaf Nation can spot the obvious it's pretty clear that JFJ can see it too. He's inexperienced, not a moron. The level of politcal intrigue that he has to deal with on a daily basis is probably more than any one of us will have to deal with in our entire lives.

Three years ago the Leafs brought in a rookie GM, someone so inexperienced that he wasn't able to dictate the terms of his own employment. An older, wiser, more experienced GM isn't even going to sign his name on a contract without EXPLICIT guarantees that this is his team to run as he wants.

So the board walked all over him, kept him dancing from one year to the next, and the result is the kind of team you see us icing now.

Change is in the air. But how significant the change is likely to be is anyone's guess. The Leaf's are great at cosmetic changes, but wholly crap at dealing with systemic failings.

Pogge

Chris says:

If the question is how do the Leafs win more games, Pogge is not the answer.

It's indicative of the just how much the Leafs are panicing that they would even think of calling Pogge up to potentially have him start a game. From what I've heard he's at least another year away from being a legitimate goalie.

By even calling him up it says the Leafs are hoping that their number four guy on the depth chart has enough mad skills in his pocket to make up for his complete lack of experience in the NHL. I don't know, maybe he does. I keep hearing the guy being touted as the Leafs next big thing, but I haven't seen him in action so I can't seperate the hope from the hype.

Rather than being a wake up call it comes off as a desperation move. It shows that the Leafs have abandoned smart hockey in favour of throwing any and everything at the wall and praying that something sticks.

The only way having Pogge as a starter makes any sense is if you officially call the season and want to try and groom him for a starters position next year. Even then you've still got three other guys ahead of him.

With the kind of games Raycroft has been posting no other team is going to take him off our hands. No other squad is desperate enough, or foolish enough, to think that Raycroft will be their saviour on the ice. He's shaping up to be a backup goaltender, if that. What happened to this guy? Where did that rookie sensation vanish too?

Clemmensen isn't a starter. He's good enough to hold Brodeur's skates, but he's not the guy you give the nod to on a nightly basis.

Toskala. I like him where he is. I'm absolutely not against the idea of having Pogge be the backup man to Toskala right now. It'll blood him, give him experience and the Leafs aren't going to lose anything by trying because at this point the season has gone way beyond just 'circling the drain' anyway.

You can't even pin last night's loss on him. He was good enough to nail the door shut for over forty minutes of play, on a pretty splashy showing by the Sharks no less. But how the hell is he supposed to do his job when the Leafs are taking stupid penalities and leaving the team at a two man disadvantage? On a team icing Thornton, Marleau and Cheechoo that's just a recipe for disaster.

Last night's game in a nutshell? The Leafs played good solid hockey for a period and a half last night, then they got tired, and sloppy and let the Sharks waltz back and steal it all away. If we'd finished the game with the same intensity in which we'd started it, and still lost, I'd say 'game well played' and some times the other team is just the better team.

But we lost because we gave up. Looks like the fans aren't the only ones who can see the writing on the wall

Steve says:


Bringing Pogge up is not a desperation move. We're beyond desperation now. This season is in the crapper and everyone knows it now...
But bringing Pogge up is a slap in the face of Raycroft. It's PM's way of saying "you little bastard...how dare you play that way on my team. You will now sit and watch as this kid takes your job!"
When they showed us Raycroft sitting and watching the game, it looked as though he was half asleep...even when we had the lead! That pissed me off.

Even Sundin is showing his frustration. A nice shove of the official at the end of the game was like an exclamation mark about the way he is feeling these days. I wonder if he saw the Scotty Bowman interview on CBC where Scotty basically said that MLSE (or more specifically, Richard Peddie) turned him down at the beginning of the season.
How many cups has this guy won? and on how many different teams in how many different situations....and Peddie turns him down why? because we are only 3 weeks away from training camp?

Holy F**************************************************************************************************************************K!

Network

Chris:

You'd have to be pretty slow on the uptake these days not to see just what kind of trouble our boys in blue are in. Steve and I spent a lot of time talking over possible solutions, trades, signings, callups and identifying potential stumbling blocks to achieving post season success, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.

But I think after some of the shellackings we've been taking in recent days a couple things have become obvious.

1. This season is all but unsalvageable. We can either blow up the team, which I'm against, or we can start having a serious discussion about how we can use this to our advantage and shuffle the player roster a bit to prepare for the future. It's time to move some of our higher paid dead wood and start accumulating draft picks.

2. There is a serious and systematic failure in the Leafs organization. I label it the Teachers Pension Plan. It taints all decisions, creates bureaucratic paralysis and trades short term profitability for long term sucess. This is not a combination that will ever get us into the playoffs and until it is addressed, expect more of the same.

3. Fan revolt. The team has lost its focus on winning. Let's face it, the stands at the ACC will always be full. The better seats will always be full of buisnessman, wearing suits, looking to impress a client and leaving after the second period. Even the cheap seats are anything but. The team's reponse to middle class fan is to give us the one fingered salute while jacking up ticket prices and moving a growing number of games onto Leafs TV. And they do all this while the team ISN'T WINNING.

And we're starting to notice. We're starting to notice and frankly, dedicated, long time fans are begininng to walk away from the organization because we've had enough. For too long the Leafs have ruled the roost. They've been able to get away with continually dissapointing us and gouging us because they've given us a team just good enough to keep us on the edge of our seats. Only now they've stopped even doing that. They've given up on the fans and now the fans are giving up on them.

Mark my words, change is in the air.

I offered!!!

Steve says:

So i was finally in Toronto again and Chris actually showed up this time instead of faking an injury...I offered him $ for the Leafs TV bet and he turned it down!
(I wasn't sure how much the actual total was, so I offered at least $60 to start, and we could figure it out later)
Maybe Chris isn't the Leaf fan he makes out to be....

only time will tell...

ps. Thanks for coming to the show buddy....video to be posted soon
http://www.blogger.com/www.shannonroseandthethorns.com

Chris:

Not only did I

a) Have to pay to see the show. (What, no guest list?)
b) Be put to work. (Taped the whole damn for him)
c) I still didn't get my money

Around these parts, we call that the "Steve".

Elisha Watch 2008: slap shot!

Steve Says:

Nice slap shot Elisha!

Looking ahead to Philly

Steve says:

Saturdays game against the Flyers is pretty crucial as is is really a 4 point game. If we win, we jump over a few teams into the 10th spot right on the heels of the Flyers and in a position to sneak into a playoff spot.
Looking even further ahead, we have a few tough games against the Duck and Sharks...We should be able to beat the Kings...

so another interconference game and then a chance to gain a few points from west coast teams...we need to leave the past in the past and look forward...

A few wins against the west coast teams would do a lot for both team morale and our positioning.

Games 37,38,39,40, and 41

Steve says:

Well...I went away for a while thanks to some holiday time...but now I am back.
What has happened to our beloved Leafs in my absence?
well...

game 37 - We lost to the Islanders 4-3 in OT
game 38 - We lost to the Flyers 4-1
game 39 - We lost to the Rangers 6-1
game 40 - We actually won a game against the worst team in the league, the Lightning. We won 4-3 in a shootout!
game 41 - we returned to the losing ways by getting utterly blown out of the water 6-2 by the Penguins.

...And so now we are at the halfway mark of the season. We are 13th in the conference, 26th in the League. our Record is 16-17-8 and we have a grand total of 40 points.

Toskala has been injured for the past little while with a groin pull. He is expected to return by Saturday's game against the Flyers. Raycroft tried to fill in for him and proceeded to lose 3 games in a row (14 goals in 3 games...yikes!)
So then they brought in Clemmenson...our goalie who is helping us so much in the minors where the Marlies are doing a splendid job....he luckily made saves in a shootout to give us a win, but when faced with the offensive force that is Malkin, Crosby and the Penguins, our Defence left Clemmenson out to dry...

Blake however, as I predicted, starting to show his offensive abilities. He scored both Leaf goals last night and had a 3 point game in the win against the Lightning.

So it has been a very VERY painful first half of the season. We've had some ups and many downs. One way to keep the spirits up is to realise that as bad as we are doing, we are only 3 points out of a play-off spot. That's a win and OT Loss....so things can turn very quickly.
We are starting to run short on time however...and it would be nice if the boys could turn things around this half and give us fans more reasons to cheer.

Go Leafs Go !
(as in Go get a new GM)

Chris says:

With the the terrible downturns we've been suffering through this year I'm honestly surprised that we're doing as well as we are.

Well being a relative term.

Ok. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I'm surprised we're keeping it as close as we are.

But here's the thing. This is as well as we're likely to do with these players. Offensively we're about average. Most nights we can manage to find the back of the net at least a couple times. Yah Blake hasn't been posting his usual numbers, but he gets a pass this year. (Actually, he gets a pass for as long as he has leukemia.) In goal, Toskala has proven himself to be a step up on Raycroft and his absense proves just how much we've come to rely on him.

Our problem continues to be on the defensive front. We've got good guys, guys who can kick the ever loving crap out of you and me. But essentially guys who aren't good enough to shut down the other side on any kind of consistent basis. That's not there fault. They look to be like they're playing to the best of their ability. It's just that there ability...isn't as strong as we'd like.

Will a new GM or a head coach help this team? Not this season and not with these players. Let Ferger-berger finish his walk of shame, hire a decent GM and then do the smart thing and BACK THE F#CK OFF.